On August 9, Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was killed by a police officer named Darren Wilson in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri. Eyewitnesses to the shooting report that Brown was killed while attempting to surrender, but police say that Brown assaulted the officer before the shooting.
The incident provoked immediate anger and frustration in the community and around the country. The killing of Eric Garner, also an unarmed black man, by New York City police last month revived a public conversation about the history of police violence against black men, and the killing of Brown has inflamed it.
Protests began in the neighborhood immediately after Brown was shot, and continued throughout the weekend. On Sunday night, Ferguson erupted into civil unrest, with reports of looting, arson, and gunshots. Although the protests in the days that followed were largely nonviolent, an escalating and militarized police presence in the streets of Ferguson did nothing to ease the tension or soothe a concerned community, and local law enforcement's use of tear gas, rubber bullets, and dogs further eroded the trust between residents and police. On Thursday, the tide seemed to turn after Gov. Jay Nixon put the Missouri Highway Patrol in charge of security in Ferguson. But the next day, Ferguson police revealed details from the day of the shooting, and that night tensions escalated at protests.
